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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23830051">Disturbance of Faith</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethany81707/pseuds/bethany81707'>bethany81707</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Magdalene von Hresvelg [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anger, Betrayal, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:42:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23830051</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethany81707/pseuds/bethany81707</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Magdalene learns of Rhea's priorities, and disagrees with them. Rhea has enough of Magdalene's "insolence".</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Magdalene von Hresvelg [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717063</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Disturbance of Faith</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story was intended to fit within a larger exploration of Magdalene's attendance at Garreg Mach, but seeing as how that story is looking increasingly unlikely, here is the distilled core of it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“So… this is what you were planning, Rhea,” Magdalene called. It took a moment for Acacia’s class to reorient themselves, and finally found Magdalene standing a few steps behind them, glaring rather solidly at the archbishop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Indeed, it’s quite splendid, is it not?” Rhea asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have hurt my Professor to implant your own idea of a perfect little goddess. Forgive me for being a little triggered. It’s not like I’ve gone through that exact thing or anything,” Magdalene drawled. Hands shot to mouths all across the student body, since this particular nugget of Magdalene’s past was news to them. Rhea, for her part, either didn’t notice or didn’t care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Glad you can see things my way, dear,” Rhea assured her. Magdalene’s eyebrow twitched. She wasn’t exactly planning on ‘didn’t notice’.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How long has this little plan of yours been put into effect? A month? A year?” Magdalene asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Longer than even a millenium, Hresvelg,” Rhea proudly proclaimed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A… A thousand years… so you could… have you at least been looking at the lands that look to you for succor? Or has this plot to produce a vessel for your precocious little goddess consumed all of your attention?” Magdalene called. Rhea blinked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come now, things can’t be that bad. If I needed to intervene, someone would’ve told me,” Rhea said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I WAS LOCKED UP AND DIDN’T SEE SUNLIGHT FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG! And you didn’t see </span>
  <em>
    <span>any</span>
  </em>
  <span> reason to think about the world you’ve created? Through Lonato, through the Death Knight, through Miklan… through most of the children behind you? Look at them, Rhea. The world you’ve built- no, the world you’ve slapped together and left to rot- has hurt them all in unique ways. They want change. </span>
  <em>
    <span>We</span>
  </em>
  <span> want change. I call for a vote of no confidence in you, or whatever the equivalent you have in place is. If you were even selfless enough to allow one. I don’t believe for a second that you have a clause in place for if perfect, pristine little Rhea happened to need a timeout,” Magdalene growled, darkness brewing at her fingertips despite herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve heard enough of this. Mother, deal with her!” Rhea ordered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I’d like to hear what she has to say too,” Acacia said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Deal with me for telling you to think about your ideas a little more carefully. Just like you wanted to kill Lonato. Just like you slaughtered those Western Church puppets before they blabbed the secret of their masters. Just like you ordered on Miklan while he was unconscious. I’ve killed the man who tortured me and brought my entire family to ruin, and I learned my lesson when his minions started running around and getting up to mischief without any idea of how to curb them in. If there’s one mistake I do not want to see you make, it’s one I’ve made. Besides, would you really have a child killed?” Magdalene asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re no child. And who are you to tell me how to run my monastery?” Rhea asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Princess… no, wait, I finally had the proper paperwork done, that’s right. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Empress</span>
  </em>
  <span> Magdalene von Hresvelg of Adrestia, proud descendant of Wilhelm! I was tortured to within an inch of my sanity, surviving only because my vile captors needed one survivor and I had Hubert to share the agony! I watched as all ten of my brothers and sisters either lost their minds or their lives to the pain! I have torn my fate from their cruel hands and assembled my own seat of power with my own sweat, blood and tears! And unless you can find it somewhere in that cold, stone relic you call a heart to reorganise this dictatorship you’re running, I’ll tear it from your hands and do it myself!” Magdalene yelled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Magdalene…” Ferdinand started, looking around at the Black Eagles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Humans… you prideful, selfish little wretch of an insignificant cockroach! Your kind drove mine to functional extinction! All that’s left of my Nabatean heritage are me, three of my brothers and my niece! Slaughtered with a weapon made from the bones of my mother! Don’t you dare draw the suffering card, because there’s no way your insignificant little mind can wrap your head around mine! The Crests are the bloodlines of my fallen family, and I will not have all that remains of them tossed aside like garbage because you humans have thin scales and can’t take a little suffering! Mother! I have heard enough from this outspoken little wretch your vessel has taken to! Kill her!” Rhea yelled back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, Rhea, let’s not jump to hasty decisions we can’t take back…” Dorothea muttered, something Rhea did not react to, to Dorothea’s relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not going to. You’re acting like a selfish brat, Seiros. Five days in time out, young lady!” Acacia ordered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh… I get it now… mercenary filth. You’re not my mother at all. You’re not grateful I went to all the trouble of restoring you to your proper place among this world. You’re just that Acacia brat pretending to be my mother. Well, I’m not going to allow this to slide. You’re a disgrace to this sacred place and my brethren! If you will work against the church I have worked so hard to build, then I shall simply rip that chest open and take back my mother’s heart and try again!” Rhea roared. Her chest glowed a bright green, and the students hurriedly cleared room for the Immaculate One to take her space within the Holy Tomb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A monster… you claim to know what’s best for humanity while not caring for their struggles? And you preach tolerance,” Magdalene scowled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh, Maggie, Magdalene, Empress, Your Majesty? I don’t think Rhea ever preached tolerance… </span>
  <em>
    <span>can I go now</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Bernadetta squeaked up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A pick and choose religion, is it? Set things up so that everything favours you and disregard what doesn’t? I don’t think it’ll even be a contest, monster. Once word of your vile handiwork spreads among the continent, your ill-gotten throne will be torn from your tail and I shall see to it that its new occupant will be competent! Or, you know, I could let any bum from the streets sit on it for a day and things’ll turn out better than they ever would in your claws,” Magdalene snapped. She leaped into the air as the Immaculate One tried to rend her, landing on her back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And to prove my story…” Magdalene said, and tore off one of the Immaculate One’s horns with her bare hands. The beast let out a vicious roar, but Hubert had mages at the ready to bail Magdalene out of there, along with the rest of the class, before it caused a gigantic mess of anything other than her own family’s grave.</span>
</p>
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